It looks like the ShotSpotter system will be taken offline in Chicago before proponents of the gunshot detection system can make a last attempt to save it.
Rules Committee Chair Michelle Harris (8th) made certain of it on Friday by placing on Monday’s agenda an ordinance giving Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling the power to extend the existing ShotSpotter deal or enter into a new contract for similar technology.
Ald. David Moore (17th) had hoped to use a parliamentary maneuver at next week’s City Council meeting to force a vote on that ordinance, which has languished in the Rules Committee, where legislation often is sent to die.
Moore planned to invoke Rule 41. That means he’d first need two-thirds of the 50-member Council — 34 members — to suspend the rules for immediate consideration of an ordinance if no action had been taken on it in committee. Then, he would need 26 votes to pass the ordinance.
Instead, Harris put Moore’s ordinance on Monday’s agenda, effectively killing the chance for Moore to invoke Rule 41 on Wednesday.
If, as expected, the Rules Committee votes to refer Moore’s ordinance to another committee, the ordinance can’t be called up via Rule 41. That would prevent the full Council from taking action until long after the Sept. 22 date when ShotSpotter will be shut down in 12 of Chicago’s most violent police districts.
Harris did not return phone calls. But she has told associates she is determined to protect Snelling, who supports keeping ShotSpotter, and fears approval of that ordinance would place him at odds with the mayor.
Ald. Anthony Beale (9th), one of ShotSpotter’s most outspoken advocates, called Harris’ action “totally disgusting” and accused her of doing Mayor Brandon Johnson’s bidding by foreclosing one last effort to save ShotSpotter.
“I am extremely livid that we had this ready, teed up to be voted on,” Beale said.
“When it gets turned off on the 22nd, it’s gonna be because of people playing games with peoples’ lives. ”
Harris was among the 34 alderpersons who voted in May to tie the mayor’s hands when it comes to honoring his campaign promise to cancel ShotSpotter.
That earlier order sought to block Johnson from pulling the technology from any ward without a meeting of the public safety committee and full Council appoval.
Johnson considered it so nebulous, he didn’t even bother to veto it. He argued he alone has the power to approve city contracts.
“It ain’t what a person says. It’s what a person does. And we just saw what she did,” Beale said of Harris.
“We had more than enough votes to suspend the rules to get this done. This is too important of an issue to play games with. … This ordinance won’t see the light of day for at least three months. And by then, it’s already turned off.”
Moore held his fire on Harris’ maneuver.
“I haven’t talked to Ald. Harris about it, so I can’t say” whether he considers it a legislative double-cross.
Earlier this week, Moore accused Johnson of defying the May order and hinted at a possible court fight pitting the mayor against the Council majority determined to keep ShotSpotter.
“The order says you cannot end the contract or take funding away from [a ward] from a public safety standpoint until you come before the City Council. Now, he can choose to ignore that order. But that order passed.”
Johnson campaigned on a promise to get rid of ShotSpotter to appease an anti-technology movement that gained steam after a police officer responding to a ShotSpotter alert fatally shot 13-year-old Adam Toledo in March 2021.
The mayor made good on that promise, though his hand-picked police superintendent is among ShotSpotter’s biggest cheerleaders.
Johnson was so determined to end the technology, he announced the decision before finalizing an exit plan for CPD. He was then forced to pay a premium to negotiate an extension that maintained the system through the traditionally violent summer months and the August Democratic National Convention Chicago.